Monday, July 31, 2006

how much does a rescue cost?

The US will save those americans trying to leave Lebanon, just so long as they agree to pay the government back for the help. so deffinatly file this one under "WTF?" since when do we charge people for a rescue? I dont remember seeing a guy filling out forms as the helicopter evatuated people out of Siagon. If this was reversed and we needed to evacuate americans from Israel, would we charge them?

4 comments:

I suppose I have mixed feelings on this. There is NO WAY I would be travelling to "visit relatives" in that part of the world right now. NO WAY. But, if I did decide to do so, to knowingly put myself in a risky situation, is it the government's problem to get me out? Well, yeah, I guess so. Maybe. But, don't I have some responsibility for not getting myself into that mess in the first place? Military has no choice. Everybody else does. Knowing that FEMA can't handle what we've got going on here at home, isn't it a little foolish and shortsighted to think the government can handle things for you abroad? A very frightening proposition, as far as I'm concerned.

FEMA did its job just fine for years. When you put people in charge of government that say government is the problem, this is what you get. It's like putting your husband who says he hates cooking in charge of dinner. How good a job is he going to do? He might even burn the crap out of it just to prove his point.

Oh, I agree about the FEMA statement. FEMA did fine until their entire agenda was changed for them. The structure was changed. The funding was changed. They were turned from an effective tool into a broken widget. Shameful. I think people used to have great confidence in FEMA. I don't think they do any longer. 'Course that's jmo.